Brad Larson, an environmental health specialist for San Bernardino County, inspects a water sample from the pool at a Super 8 motel in Redlands on Wednesday, Aug. 3, 2016. Larson is one of several public health professionals who came out of retirement this year to fill vacancies in San Bernardino’s environmental health division, which lost 13 inspectors in the Dec. 2 attack at the Inland Regional Center.

“I fall asleep at night and I can see the whole layout of a kitchen,” said Larson, 61, who inspected retail food facilities in San Diego County for more than 20 years. “It sounds boring to somebody, but for me I just, I liked it.”

Inspecting restaurants has never been just a job for Larson. He loves food, the industry and the fast-paced atmosphere behind kitchen doors.

But now, being part of the environmental health family has much more meaning.

Thirteen of the 14 people who were killed in the mass shooting inspected pools, school kitchens and restaurants for the San Bernardino County Department of Public Health’s Environmental Health Services Division. More than 20 other employees of the division were wounded.

“I was reading about it and then I saw environmental health and I go ‘wait a minute, those are inspectors,’ ” said Larson, one of 30 retired environmental health specialists who has been working for the county this year as part of a contract with the California Association of Environmental Health Administrators, a network of environmental health directors and professionals from across the state.

In the wake of the Dec. 2 attack, the division relied heavily on mutual aid from other health departments in Southern California to continue providing services as many of the victims and other county employees went on leave.

“What we realized pretty quickly was it would be unfair or unrealistic to expect these other counties to continue providing help,” said San Bernardino County Environmental Health Director Joshua Dugas.

In late February, Dugas reached out to the association which, in turn, reached out to its members, asking if anyone was willing to work for the county on a temporary basis.

The response was immediate.

“We got 30 people hired in two weeks,” said Sheryl Baldwin, manager of the association. “A lot of the people are retired so they feel obligated to help their environmental health family and they already know what to do.”

Temporary employees were given 90-day contracts to help facilitate the food program, manage vector control and serve in other supervisory roles, according to Baldwin. Many of those employees renewed their contracts for another 90 days. Larson was recently hired as a permanent employee.

“(The contractors) have provided us the ability to heal and rebuild,” he said. “They’ve been an amazing resource and there’s no way we would be where we’re at if it wasn’t for them.”

For Larson, the opportunity was a new lease on life.

After retiring, he tried consulting businesses in the food industry, but he said he got a little overwhelmed. Returning to the field with his notepad, flashlight and thermometers renewed him.

“It’s just a fresh environment and it’s a noble cause,” Larson said on a recent morning before a round of restaurant inspections in downtown Redlands.

He said as a new employee he doesn’t want to bring up the tragedy that brought him to San Bernardino County, but within minutes of walking into the kitchen at Pieology Pizzeria one of the victims came up.

“Nick (Thalasinos) was our standard health inspector for my Rancho location, so he was the one to do my last health inspection over there and give us a hundred before,” said Christal Chavez, general manager of Pieology.

Larson beamed. He had heard about Thalasinos before.

“He gave you a hundred?” Larson said almost in disbelief. The late inspector was known as one of the toughest in the Rancho Cucamonga office. “Wow.”

Growing up, Larson loved food and wanted to be a chef but he ended up getting his bachelor’s degree in environmental health because of some advice from a UCLA Extension counselor who said this way he’d get to spend time in thousands of kitchens.

“I took the advice and finished my degree,” he said.

As other contractors wrap up their time in the county, Larson and the new inspectors will have to learn how to fill the shoes of Thalasinos and the others.

“Nick, what a personality everybody said. He was really tough, but they loved him — can’t be a better inspector than that,” Larson said.

He ended up giving Chavez a 100 on her inspection that morning. It was one of two or three perfect scores he’s given out since April.

She said she owes her high food safety standards, in part, to Thalasinos and the other inspectors she’s worked with over the years.

“They teach you about the industry,” Chavez said. “They teach you what to look for, they teach you how to be patient, they teach you like everything.”

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